First 10 Days

10 days have passed and I'm settling well in my new job.

There's not much to say, but maybe some statistics for my first 10 days might tell you more about the job.

Average time I reached the office: 8:21am
Average time I left the office: 6:57pm

Average time I spent at work per day (excluding lunch): 8 hours 54 mins

That works out to 44 hours 30 minutes per week.

For a clearer picture...



Stressed or relaxed, I will leave it to readers to decide. Anyway, it's supposedly the 'honeymoon' period and the working hours are only going to increase in the coming weeks. ;)

A Few Best Men

This is probably one of the last few times I'm going to win movies from Radio 91.3 because I can't listen to radio in the daytime from tomorrow onwards. Anyway, thanks once again to Radio 91.3.

This is a comedy which saw a British travelling all the way to Australia to marry a woman that he met on a island during a vacation. Then all hell broke loose when three of his best friends that accompanied him to Australia started doing crazy things on the night before the wedding. The actual wedding day turned out to be even more spectacular for the wrong reasons, and the bridegroom was left trying to salvage the wedding party. Throw in the politician father-in-law, drug-sniffing mother-in-law, and more weird characters like the sister-in-law and a drug dealer, this movie promises to keep you laughing all the way to the end.

The storyline is simple and there's not many emotional or touching scenes (except towards the end). But if you are just craving for laughter to destress, and are game for some nudity and coarse language (what's new these days...), then this is a perfect one!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Euro 2012 Is Here!

In about 24 hours' time, Euro 2012 will kick off and matches will be played all the way till 1 July. For those who are unsure what this tournament, in short, Euro 2012 is the European World Cup, i.e. a World Cup for countries in Europe.

Apart from Brazil, Argentina and the uprising Uruguay (2010 World Cup semi-finalist), the countries which have quality soccer standards come from Europe. Thus, this tournament is just as exciting as the World Cup, and the absence of Asian and African teams made the playing field more even and unpredictable.

The preliminary round see 16 countries being distributed in 4 groups, and only the top 2 from each group will make it to the quarter-finals. Let's make some predictions.

Group A: Czech Republic [World Ranking: 26], Greece [14], Poland [65], Russia [11]

Clearly Russia is the favourites to make it through the group stage, while the 2nd place is pretty much open for grabs. In case you are wondering how a 65th-placed country made it to the tournament, Poland actually qualified as the co-hosts so they enjoy the advantage of the home support.

Who will qualify? The pundits' and bookies' favourites are Russia and Poland, but I think Poland's home advantage is overhyped. Ultimately, quality is still the key. For me, it's Russia and Greece.

Group B: Denmark [10], Germany [2], Netherlands [4], Portugal [5]

Looking at the world rankings, this is clearly the Group of Death. Even the worst-placed team in this group is better than the best-placed team in Group A. Germany are one of the two strong favourites to win this tournament, so they are expected to breeze through the group stage. As for the 2nd spot, Portugal and Denmark are both strong dark horses to Netherlands.

Who will qualify? Pretty straightforward. My views are similar to those pundits and bookies worldwide this time, it will be Germany and Netherlands.

Group C: Croatia [8], Republic of Ireland [18], Italy [12], Spain [1]

Spain are strong favourites to win Euro 2012, solely because they won Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 and this magical team is largely unchanged. Italy was once a force but they have been underperforming and inconsistent in the recent years. This is Croatia's best chance to make themselves proud, and Ireland is widely expected to be the team that's going to go home empty-handed.

Who will qualify? Another straightforward one. Spain and Italy.

Group D: England [7], France [16], Sweden [17], Ukraine [50]

On first look, this seems to be easy group for England but they are not without troubles. A new and relatively inexperienced manager might just be their downfall. France have undergone a huge transformation and will go into this tournament on a 21-match unbeaten run. Sweden must be silently confident of their chances as well. As for Ukraine, unsurprisingly, they qualified as co-hosts of the tournament.

Who will qualify? The expected ones are France and England, but I would like to say France and Sweden. Partly because I'm anti-England. Hehehe.

In summary...
Expected: Russia, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, England
My prediction: Russia, Greece, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden

Let's see if I will be more accurate!

First Class Honours

ST4199 - Honours Project in Statistics
Grade: A-

ST4240 - Data Mining
Grade: A

ST4245 - Statistical Methods for Finance
Grade: B

SAP: 4.40
FINAL CAP: 4.56 - FIRST CLASS HONOURS

I was in camp when I received my results via SMS.

Only my grade for my Honours Project mattered, the rest didn't. So when I saw the A- for ST4199, I knew I have made it. Never mind that horrible-looking B grade for ST4245. Haha. To be honest, I didn't expect to do so badly for that module. (I hope my future employers don't question me on that, because this module is very relevant to my job.) As for ST4240, getting an A for being lost till 1.5 weeks before the exams is quite a miracle - I can only put it down to the entire cohort being as lost as I was as well. Hehe.

Anyway, I'm delighted that I have gotten the job done and my hard work throughout these 4 years were not in vain, especially in this foreigners-dominated course. I don't deny that the stiff competition have kept me on my toes and made me push harder, but it's also because I want to prove to whoever is out there, that locally born Singaporeans can produce talented statisticians as well.

Statistics has been my passion since I was exposed to it in JC 2, and it has brought me all the way here. I'm not sure if I get to play with numbers as much when I start working, but I'm sure my love-hate relationship (more love than hate lah) with statistics will have a special place in my heart. :)

Lastly, I congratulate myself for getting the job done. Yay.

Marvel's The Avengers

This is my 8th movie for the year.

Personally, I'm not a fan of superhero movies even though I do know some of them from my childhood due to those fighting games in the arcade machines. I haven't watched any of the X-Men movies, Ironman movies, or even Thor or Hulk movies. The reason is simple, it's not my cup of tea. To me, the display of superpowers doesn't entertain me as much as other genres like comedies or even thought-provoking movies. For the full (short) list of superhero movies that I have watched since 2007, you can refer to the end of this entry. As you can see, the ratings are well below average. (The average for 51 movies that I have watched since 2007 stands at 3.66 stars.)

In any case, after so many positive reviews that I received, I thought this might not be a bad movie. In short, I believed most of you would have watched it so I shall skip the summary of the movie. To sum it up, it's the triumph of good over evil, and that these avengers worked together and succeeded in driving away the evil forces from Earth.

To be honest, I found the movie more "funny" than "exciting". Robert Downey Jr was really funny to me in his Ironman act, and I guess the audience the loved the Hulk more, who was played by Mark Ruffalo. To me, it isn't a 'wow' movie but comparing this against the previous superhero movies that I've watched, this is probably one of the best ones.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Past superhero movies (since 2007): 
2007: Spiderman 3 (2 stars) 
2007: Fantastic 4: The Rise Of The Silver Surfer (1.5 stars) 
2008: The Dark Knight (4 stars) 
2011: Green Lantern (2.5 stars)

Taiwan - Day 11 & 12

KAOHSIUNG 

Day 11 and 12 were both rainy days. It rained the whole day and it was really inconvenient to carry an umbrella to tour, and it's more challenging to balance the umbrella and use the camera to snap photos. Haha. But we have no choice as it's not possible to just stone at the hotel room, though the comfort level of the bed and choice of the television programmes were pretty inviting. Not to mention, the complimentary Wifi. Haha.

In any case, we made our way to Kaohsiung Fisherman's Wharf, and then took a 10-minute ferry ride to a nearby island called Cijin (旗津) - I'm puzzled about Taiwan's Hanyu Pinyin sometimes because they don't match. Spent an afternoon on the island, and then went to Sizihwan Bay hoping to catch the sunset but it was drizzling and the sky was very cloudy. Dabao-ed dinner from a night market near our hotel and returned. Got a little bored in the rainy night and went to nearby shopping centres for another walk

Day 12 was spent travelling on the taxi, High Speed Rail, and then bus, from our hotel to the airport. No photos were taken.

Fisherman's Wharf @ Kaohsiung

View at Fisherman's Wharf

Gushan Ferry Pier, where we took the ferry to Cijin.

This is the ferry. The ride is only SGD 0.65.

Reached Cijin and the land across the waters was where we came from.

Ferry terminal at Cijin

An ancient temple at Cijin, it's a very hundred years old.

Went to both the fort and lighthouse and got nice landscape views!

The other side of Cijin, facing the Pacific Ocean I believe.

The colourful houses are in Cijin, while the rest across the river/sea is Kaohsiung.

Another angle

Beach at Cijin (facing the Pacific Ocean)

Their sand is not the usual colour we see in Singapore.

Returned to Kaohsiung and decided to grab some desserts after seeing the huge crowd at this particular stall.

Hmm, quite nice I would say!

Walked to Sizihwan Bay to catch the sunset.

No sight of the sun. :(

It's supposed to be serene...

But actually, it was very noisy, thanks to groups and groups of tourists from you-know-where. Grr.

Caught some boats and ships entering and heading towards Kaohsiung Port.

On the bridge

Another view of the peaceful place

Nice view of Kaohsiung. :)

That sums up Day 11 and 12.